Be Rid of Common Sense

One of the things that I always here from other people and always, always irks me is, "Common sense is not so common."

When we say this, we assume that there must be common sense. That there should be information or judgment of situations that we should expect from other people. When we say this, we presume that there are certain things that people must already know.

Why does it irk me?

Because it takes away our unique circumstances. It doesn't account for how our personal experiences shape how we think and what we know.

What is common knowledge to us is not so with everyone. And what is common knowledge to other people might not be for us.

If someone acts in a way that we thing wrong, before we place judgment and say they don't have common sense, we should first consider that they could be acting according to what they think is right. Or they could be acting simply without thinking of what is right. Maybe they were not able to think straight at that moment.

It doesn't matter, because we don't know. And it would be arrogant of us to assume that they should know the same things that we do, and behave how we expect them to.

We should be rid of thinking that there is common sense, and stop holding people to expectations that we fail to communicate.